A sturdy, soapy legal saga swirling around the plundering of a fat Philadelphia trust. The one thing everybody agrees on is that Scott Sterling, a fair-haired associate at Harding & McMann authorized to administer both the trust of the late Elizabeth Mason Chapman and the market trading account of Curtis Mason, her brother and trustee, plunged heavily in Mason's account and covered his losses by looting the trust. When the dust is cleared by Scott's tearful confession to Dan Casella and Jennifer Lodge, the attorneys Harding & McMann have hired to pull them out of this mess, nearly $2 million has made its way from the Chapman trust to the trustee's private account. But how ignorant was Mason about what Scott was doing? When Mason refuses to return the money to the trust and sues Harding & McMann instead, Casella and Lodge wonder if Scott hasn't been set up by Mason as the cat's paw in his scheme to raid the trust. By the time the case goes to trial, Dan and Jenny have tumbled into bed and then out, hard, and Jenny's living platonically with Scott, whom she bitterly (and mendaciously) identifies to Dan as the father of her forthcoming baby; and she's also started to build a formidable career at a rival firm by holding her nose and doing whatever it takes (vide a particularly trenchant prÇcis of her Machiavellian first case). In the courtroom, Dan's bulldog questioning builds enough sympathy for Scott to win him an acquittal over the foaming rage of Mason, who's promptly (some might say finally) murdered, raising new problems for Dan, Jenny, and Scott—the obvious suspect, though there are plenty of others, from Elizabeth Chapman's mild widower to her unexpectedly take-charge daughter and legatee. A little creaky, a little sudsy, but an unusually well- balanced debut—if the financial defalcations don't hook you, the romantic triangle will—packed with more breaches of trust than you can shake a subpoena at.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-671-53720-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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